


The space between stars

by Graylines



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Body Dysphoria, Both talk about their dads, Build up to big sister Nebula, But from her point of view, But only the aftermath after the snap and peter's gone, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Exploration of Tony and Nebula's friendship, Grief/Mourning, Howard Stark's A+ Parenting, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Its my au and i say clint didnt go on a murdercation, Its sad but its so hopeful, Nebula dealing with her greif, Nebula is a Good Bro (Marvel), Nebula is neurodivergent, Not Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Not Canon Compliant, Parent Tony Stark, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Slight mentions of body horror due to nebula's prostheses, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony asking for advice, Tony dealing with his greif and fear of being a new father, Tony emotionaly adoptiong nebula, Tony greiving over peter, this is about healing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-18
Updated: 2021-03-18
Packaged: 2021-03-27 12:26:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30122736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Graylines/pseuds/Graylines
Summary: There is more cold empty space in existence than any tangible cluster of atoms. Now more than ever Nebula can feel the cold emptyness inside of her. Great expanses of empty space between her molecules that not even the heat of her rage can warm.In the months between titan and the birth of Morgan Stark, Tony and Nebula both have to deal with the holes left in their lives in order to move on.
Relationships: Nebula & Tony Stark
Comments: 5
Kudos: 15





	The space between stars

There is a rush of strangers ready to meet them when they touch down. She's supporting Tony as best as she can without injuring him. And several men attempt to take him from her.

Each is met with a glare. It isn't until after a woman stops to speak with him and gently cradles his face that he asks to be released into the arms of Thor.

It's strange on earth. There doesn't appear to be any organized means of space travel. There are no ships for her to slip away on. And if there were where would she go?

Thanos has won. And in the wake of his victory, the universe is left in shambles. 

So she stays. Awkwardly lingering in the background while the Avengers squabble and scheme and lose more and more hope each day. 

She helps when instructed to. Following orders is one of the few things she's truly skilled at and Steve can read it on her. 

She lifts heavy objects, clears debris,s and drags away wreckages in the dirty streets of the city. 

She carries Tony from his bed to the bathroom. And they both pretend like he isn't dreading the entire experience. But he rather it be her, quiet as she is, and unwilling to send him concerned looks. 

His health improves though with so many tubes and liquids being fed into his body that the sight makes what's left of her skin itch and burn.

Some days he is stable. He holds his Pepper close and commands the room with all the gentle captivation that he directed her hands in a myriad of tasks on the ship. Some days he is angry and determined and loud. She's more comfortable with these days than the others. She knows anger well.

But some days he is a quiet misery. Eyes wet and vacant through the day. And he wails violently through the night cursing and begging. 

She is not familiar with that feeling. Not comfortable with it.

It's a strange existence this one of defeat. She thought she would die in battle. By the hand of an enemy or her father, whatever dream he had for the world didn't include her. And she never truly thought she'd live past his victory. To continue every day feels stubborn. In a hopeless hollow way.

When Tony recovers fully he flees the city. Takes up residence in a small wooden home in the forest. And he is reluctant to leave it. He cuts most communication with the Avengers and few follow him. 

Without him to fill her empty hours with Nebula finds herself increasingly alone. She sits with the fox as he tinkers or drinks whichever mood takes him. Or she walks the grounds around the compound. The plant and animal life of earth is new to her. She's assured most of it is harmless so she catalogs what she finds. She doesn't have much else to do. And it feels good to not be among the stars for the first time in a long time. It's warm and loud here.

Otherwise, she trains. There's a "gym" where the Terrans spar and this practice she is familiar with. She learns quickly that most choose to spar casually with each other. Her harsh tactics surprise them. But several enjoy the chance to learn from her foreign forms and techniques. The widow especially enjoys unleashing her brutality.

She fills her time with movement trying to avoid sleep. Her body can function on less than a Terran's. Most don't question her habits. She avoids her dreams uncertain what scene she will fall into. 

She enjoys the nights she returns to the guardians sputtering ship. Before waiting for death became such a long tedious process. She was familiar with the inevitability that feels so absent in her life now. 

She fears the nights that have her shivering awake. 

Three months after arriving on Terran she is pulling the remains of a car from a pile of wreckage and there is a pop in her arm. An inner mechanism strains and disconnects and her arm falls limply to her side. 

The captain sends her back for repairs. Only she doesn't see Rocket. She pries the plate from her arm with a blunt instrument. Her enhancements are advanced technology, the best in the galaxy. Meant to fix themselves back together when damaged. 

But she had been upgraded during her last punishment and poorly reassembled in Gamora's rush to escape. Unfamiliar wires are weaving through her forearm. She isn't sure what is functioning as It should or how to detect the malfunction. 

She makes a mistake. Alters something she should not and her metal shoulder slumps without response. Frustrated she grabs the pilfered toolbox and hurls it at the wall with her functioning hand. It crashes against unyielding concrete and explodes open loose tools flying in all directions. 

She screams at the top of her lungs. She isn't sure why. There's no one to scream at. She can't yell at her dead sister anymore. Can't turn her angst to underlings. She screeches to the broken toolbox cursing the object as Tony had weeks ago wailing at the injustice of his life. 

She wails and jerks sporadically, her useless arm colliding with her side. And the limp worthless piece of junk ignites her further. She grabs at the gaping hole in her pseudo limb and yanks. It creaks in protest. Pieces fold under her grip, some break off and clink against the floor. The joint screeches loudly in protest before it bends inward at the wrong angle. 

Someone stops her before she tears it off. The Asgardian locks his arms around her body holding her against him. She throws her head back and breaks his nose. Her foot connects with his toes, breaking several of those too. He doesn't flinch. He holds her until she's done with her fit.

The captain is present for her cooldown. As well as Rocket and the Doctor. She slumps despondently to the cement floor. So little in her life matters. Looking back perhaps it never had. She'd only believe it did because her father told her so. And because her goals surrounded her. Out of reach but still present. Looking down on her from on high. 

There was simply nothing now. 

Neither present mechanic would do more than examine her arm. They both seemed uncomfortable with her. She almost cared.

She has spent so long as part of the stars. She was raised among them, distant pricks of light that could not reach through the empty expanse of space to touch her. Most of the galaxy is empty and cold and she is too. 

They send her in a car to Tony's wooden house. Her arm shoved into a sling. 

He greets her on the porch. Looking much better than the last time she had seen him.

"Your health has improved" she states as a greeting. 

He leads her to his lab. It's more difficult than she expects to sit still on his stool and let him put his hands inside of her. She's usually suspended for this process. 

She locks her muscles down to prevent herself from flinching. The last thing she needs after her outburst is a show of fear.

He is patient with her. In a way that makes her feel patronized. Her fit was juvenile though, and she feels rightfully ashamed. So she sits silently and waits for her punishment. 

Tony has to remove most of her arm from the joint down. The entire casing is warped and the joint is completely busted. 

He calls for a break around midday to make lunch for his Wife. She is pregnant and large by this point. Sequestered to the couch with her laptop. He delivers her food to her and invites Nebula to join him on the porch. 

He sits on her left and she is relieved to not have to glance in the direction of her stump to speak with him. She feels raw in many ways. The last sections of true skin prickle in the light breeze uncomfortable with any sensation. 

The woods surround Tony's wooden house like any of her walks deep into the trees. It is a recognizable comfort and she understands why he chose to live here. But the comfort that isolation provides doesn't come to her now. The wildlife buzzes and chatters and chirps loudly all around her. The quiet ambiance is grating.

She sits stock still and waits through Tony's casual chatter to see if he'll bring up her fit now or if he'll wait until after she's repaired. 

There's a long pause in his one-sided conversation where he stares out over the water instead of looking at her.

He begins speaking solemnly "When Steve came back... I don't know if you know about that. He's a lot older than the rest of us. He knew my father when they were both young." 

She is confused both by the statement itself and the purpose Tony could have for sharing it. 

"When Steve came back I was angry. My dad liked him a lot and he didn't like me. I was never good enough for him But steve. Steve was perfect. That's what I thought growing up. He was perfect and I wasn't and that's why I wasn't good enough.

I was mad when he came back because it was another reminder that I wasn't a good enough person. I wasn't kind or trustworthy. I wasn't the better hero. He was automatic. He was Captain America and I was the asshole on the team.

I was mad that he was perfect and right there in my face reminding me of it every day. But he wasn't perfect. Steve is actually really messed up. He makes shitty calls in the field. Never thinks enough about the consequences of his actions. He's self-righteous. He doesn't listen to anyone else.

It should have made me happy that he wasn't perfect. That I could finally prove he wasn't. It didn't. Perfect or not he was still better than me. In a lot of ways. A better leader. A better person. I hated him more for being flawed than I did for being perfect.

How dare he be the model for perfection and also me so messed up."

Tony doesn't look in her direction through his speech just stares over the lake. But he turns to her when he asks.

"You and your sister didn't get along did you?"

She isn't sure how to respond for a long time. She's scared of the way she feels exposed to the whole world now. The way her throat tightens up and her eyes clench around the edges. She has no tear ducts in her altered face and the panicked part of her psyche is glad.

"No." She states plainly. They both pretend not to hear the strain in her voice.

"She was right for a long time. And I hated her for it. Now she's dead."

Tony nods and turns back to look at the lake again. 

The feeling of being overwhelmed doesn't go away for a long time. She spends days with Tony and Pepper. Her arm is more advanced than what Tony has worked with before. He spends a couple of days studying it until he can understand how it works. 

The whole planet as wide and empty as it feels presses down on her. She feels both like she is floating in a vast empty waste and that she is being compressed from the inside by her own gravity. The center of her chest pulls at each of the other atoms of her body dragging it in an ever-tightening orbit.

And every morning she wakes and wonders if today the star will collapse and a black hole will open in its place and suck her in. 

Sometimes Tony talks to her on the porch like the first day. She doesn't enjoy the conversation. They pull at her chest but she is grateful for his help and hospitality so she answers his question through the aches.

It's after another morning in the lab that she gets most of her function back in her shoulder.

"How does that feel?" Tony asks, watching her stump flex. His hand rubs over it in circles and at first, she thinks he's checking for some function or other until he asks, "Any pain with the reconnect?"

She can't help the confusion that passes over her face. "My enhancements feel no sensation."

Tony pauses in his massaging. "Even at the connection point?"

Nebula realises at once where he's confused. Her functioning hand pulls the clasps of her top until it falls open she holds it over her chest on the left side but leaves the right exposed. 

Tony is stunned first by her boldness and then by her torso. 

Across her chest is a mess of scar tissue. Molted shades that mirror the blue and purple of her face in pale greys twist across her right side. Most look like burn scars strangely flat and smooth, but there are several raised lines over prominent parts of her body. Namely over where her right breast should be there is a cross shape. Her cybernetic attachments overlay her torso and seem to attach around her ribs using the bones as anchors.

Tony stares for a long time dawning horror unfolding in his gut. Confusion and anger mixing in the swirling mess.

"Why did they change this much?"

Nebula doesn't look in his direction as she answers.

"We were to fight to the death for the position of general. One position, two heirs, only one could succeed. It was an example of his purpose. But Gamora wouldn't finish me so he threw me into the fire pit.

I lost my arm, part of my leg, and the side of my face. 

He said my enhancements improved my skill but never enough."

Her tone had turned harsh and almost passionate. She remembers what it was like to speak this way, to her sister mostly. Hurling accusations, waiting for Gamora's pathetic excuses. But it feels hollow now. That version of her died with her sister and the farther they flew away through space the colder her corpse has become. 

So Nebula silently closes her top.

Tony sets aside his tools with shaking hands and decides to call it a day early.

"Why don't we enjoy the sun until lunch?"

They recline in the grass this morning just barely dried of its dew. Tony leans his head back into the sunlight but he doesn't appear to relax. His hands constantly combing through the grass and pulling up individual blades. 

He nervously begins to babble at her.

"I'm having a baby. You know that you've seen Pepper. But the thing is, my dad was an asshole. He wasn't a Mad Titan but he was…..he shouldn't have been allowed around kids.

And now I'm having a kid, a baby, and I don't know what to do. I don't-... I don't want to be like him. But I don't know what a good dad is supposed to do. I've never seen one."

Nebula interrupts him with a solemn look.

"I had a father before Thanos. A blood father. I don't remember much, I was very young when Thanos killed him. I remember his hands mostly, when they would touch me I felt safe. When Thanos touched me I was always in danger. 

When your father touched you, were you in danger?"

Tony thought only for a brief moment about how it felt when Howard touched him. The mounting dread that crawled through his stomach. He nodded.

"When you touch your child will they be safe?"

It takes three weeks to fix Nebula's prosthetic. Cap wants her back then. The country, the world, the universe is still in chaos and they need help digging it out of the rubble. Nebula goes back glad to be useful again. Her emotions have settled some from her visit with Tony but staying idle makes her feel worse than drowning in the misery does. 

She returns to her duties with the Avengers and spends her evenings in mandatory team decompression. Forced to socialize in groups so the others might catch the next time one of them is spiraling towards a breakdown. 

Tony calls on the weekends. Sometimes they talk about the hard things again. Most of the time they work on separate projects and he talks to her without expecting much response. 

Pepper is very pregnant when they come back to the compound in preparation for her labor. Though their relationship has remained strained and even explosive at times the dawning of new life brings everyone a strange anticipatory joy. The Avengers are near giddy with it. Breaking from their usual lethargy to check in on the couple.

There's a huge commotion when her water breaks. The news travels across the compound so fast everyone is hovering outside the medbay in minutes.

Doctor Cho sent for an obstetrician friend she vouches for who is now in with pepper. She is in labor for nearly half a day before their baby girl is born. 

Each of the Avengers visits the couple through the day to meet the new baby. Some like Cap and Rocket hover nervously outside the door curious enough to peek at the baby but unwilling to enter the room. 

Clint spends over an hour cradling the infant and silently crying while Pepper sleeps. 

Tony sends for Nebula the next morning.

He is reclined in a chair by Peppers bedside when she enters. A little bundle of blankets carefully balanced in his hands. 

"Hey Grumpy smurf where've you been?"

She sends him a quizzical look before her attention wanders back to the infant.

"Is it well?"

Tony snorts. "Perfectly healthy. Why don't you come meet her? Her name is Morgan."

Nebula hesitantly kneels beside his chair to look at the baby. She seems rather red for a newborn though she isn't sure if that's normal for this species. 

They sit in silence for a long moment while Tony fusses with the baby's tiny hat. 

"It's so much scarier to have her here than I thought it would be." He whispers.

Nebula glances at him.

"How am I supposed to protect her?" His face has relaxed into the downward pull of gravity. Every stress line and wrinkle exaggerated in his cold fear. Tears leak down in an impressive amount for how silently he is crying. 

"I already lost one kid." He whispers this too like a horrible admission of guilt.

Nebula nods. "The child from Titan"

A sob bubbles low in Tony's throat and it agitates the newborn. He chokes back the next one in an effort not to wake her.

"He felt safe in your hands." She is surprised to realize.

Tony shoots her a bewildered look. His face screwed up in unimaginable pain. "He died in my hands."

Nebula nods again. "Yes, because when he felt himself dying he came to you for safety. He wanted you to hold him."

Tony cried quietly over his daughter.

**Author's Note:**

> I might be persuaded to do one more chapter of aunt Nebula content if you guys want


End file.
